Lorna Cole

So, it’s safe to say that it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here! The last time I posted I hadn’t even started university and now I’m sitting here, a few weeks into my Second Year.  I moved to Brighton last September and I love it. It was a place I was drawn to for years, so there wasn’t much deliberation once I knew there was a course I liked and so began my journey as a Media Studies student.  I’ve met so many new people in the past year and a bit and it’s probably been the busiest I’ve ever been. There are always things on in Brighton and I’ve definitely made the most of what it offers! Brighton has a crazy amount of pubs and whilst I can’t say I’ve visited them all I’ve definitely found some favourites and look forward to trying our new ones over this next academic year. Just recently my housemates and I went to a pub quiz at one of our local pubs which were great fun! Some of the other things I’ve got up to in the last year include karaoke, mini golf, an escape room,...

To say 2020 has been a weird year would be an understatement, in fact, it's been pretty crappy and much worse for many people. I feel lucky to have been able to live with some normality when the world is so chaotic. However, the year seems to have gone ridiculously fast and this blog took a backseat. I definitely had writer's block too and didn't want to blog for the sake of it, however, after being away for a while I've missed it a lot! I enjoyed the social side of blogging as well as sharing bits of my life so am looking forward to getting back into it. I’ve still been posting regularly on my Creative Arts blog as part of my studying which definitely took up a lot of time! It's been a really interesting experience and I’ve learnt a lot. I’m actually making some decisions about my future studies which I’ll share on here at some point but I definitely have a better idea of what I’m really interested in! Obviously doing a course from home is pretty time consuming and...

I feel like we could all use some tips to boost productivity now and again, I know I certainly could! I've tried to come up with a few things that I try to use to help me stay motivated and achieve the things I set out to do. - Work out what time of the day you work best, I find I'm actually more productive later in the day so I tend to set myself tasks that require more focus in the evening. Obviously, this isn't always possible but I would recommend you have a think about when you feel most productive! - Try making lists to keep track of the things you need to do but keep it basic, you don't want to spend all your time creating a perfect list and not actually complete any of the tasks on it! - Do you prefer to work in silence? With music? Or perhaps you just need some sort of low background noise, setting the best environment for you can really help you to stay productive for longer. For me, I like to listen to music in the background so always ma...

Everything else has taken a backseat lately as I recently started a course with the OCA, I knew I wanted to get a degree but had no clue what and didn’t want to rush into something after school. I’d always planned to something based around creativity but could never decide on a certain aspect. The Creative Arts degree that the OCA offers allows you to study a range of topics, to begin with (Contemporary Art, Creative Writing, Visual Communications, Photography, Textiles) and then you choose 2 of these to develop further. This is perfect for me as I’ll be able to explore the different avenues and can make a better-informed choice on what I’m more interested in. Right now, I think I’ll choose writing and photography since I enjoy them both and think they could be pretty useful in terms of the potential careers I’d be interested in - another positive being the fact that hopefully, this will open up new job opportunities too. So what is the OCA? Well, the Open College of the Arts is...

Since the academic year has recently started I thought I'd do a quick post to share some tips that I used or wish I knew at the time! I often found myself feeling pretty prepared and motivated at the start of the year but hopefully, some of these will help that to continue all year round, or more at least! Attitude and Behaviour >  Put in the effort now - when you get further into the year you'll thank yourself for putting in the time to learn everything properly, especially when it comes to revision as you'll already have materials to look back at. > Mistakes are good - it can be disheartening when you make mistakes or don't get the feedback you hoped for but learning from them is a really productive and useful way to help improve. > Strengths and Weaknesses - everyone has things they are better at and things they may struggle with, finding that out now and setting time aside to focus on the things you find harder will help reduce stress. You could als...